Date Online: 2021-06-22
SAINT-HUBERT, QC, June 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - Urbanimmersive Inc. ("Urbanimmersive", the "Company" or "UI") (TSXV: UI) (OTCQB: UBMRF) today announced an accelerated growth plan and provides business updates.
Growth Acceleration Plan
On June 16, 2021, the Company's Board of Directors held a work session during which they reviewed and approved a growth plan which aims at accelerating Urbanimmersive's revenues and profitability. While the new plan will still be focusing on increasing organic SaaS business revenues for 3D tours, property websites, floor plans, and UiMeet3D subscriptions, the plan will now allow Urbanimmersive's management to acquire well-established and profitable real estate photography agencies in selected territories, both in North America and globally, with the goal of integrating in all of their photography services a UI SaaS product.
Urbanimmersive is uniquely positioned, due to its extensive technology portfolio and solutions, to become a first-mover in this vertically integrated plan which proposes convincing synergy potentials while being immediately accretive. The Company will launch this new plan with the acquisition of a select group of four photography agencies for which two of them have already signed a binding LOI. Those first contemplated acquisitions have generated cumulative pre-synergies revenues of $2.4M based on their last fiscal year figures, including $1.7M for the two with a signed LOI, and during a very low inventory of homes for sale.
The acquisitions would be paid with a mix of cash and shares. The founders and/or owners of those targets and the Company will be closely aligned and will both benefit from continuing to grow their business. The Company will not need to raise funds to proceed with those acquisitions and will still have sufficient liquidities post-transaction to further extend the plan and continue to grow the business organically. The closing of those acquisitions is expected over the next few weeks. Based on the results of the post-acquisition synergies achieved, the Company's management could decide to accelerate the number of acquisitions with a growing funnel of targets.
The real estate residential and commercial photography industry is a highly fragmented industry shared by part-time, full-time, and multiple-photographer businesses and represents $2B in total revenues based on UI's management estimates. Well-established photography businesses generally operate high-volume transactions and generate between 40% to 60% gross margins serving multiple and loyal clients. It takes many years to build a real estate high-volume photography business and many owners who succeed to do it have very limited exit options.
Urbanimmersive's strong technology portfolio along with the corporation publicly traded shares puts the Company in a unique advantage to real estate photography owners looking for an exit. The Company's brand reputation and continued recognition by some of the largest North American real estate and technology organizations also provide a perfect blueprint for photographers to know that they are selling to a growing and highly reputable brand in the market.
"This new growth plan allows us to become a fully vertically integrated business, blending the best of the two worlds of being a SaaS business and a tech-powered real estate photography agency. Beginning to execute this plan now will continue paving the path for us to be a first-mover in this vertical capacity, and thus allow us to continue driving growth to solutions that makeup the core of who we are — a technology Company. This direction is perfectly aligned with our management values of generating profitable growth while demonstrating the forward, innovative thinking of our Board of directors for accelerating the growth", stated Ghislain Lemire, CEO of Urbanimmersive.
General Business Update
The Company's overall business continues to progress healthy as we onboard new clients, extend our reach with new partnerships and increase 3D tours revenues by 30% year-over-year. As the Company's sales still perform during a period of historical low inventories of properties for sale, management believes the Company would reap the benefits of back to normal economic conditions.
Some of those recent highlights are included below:
Second Patent Application for UiMeet3D
The Company, through its patent agent Norton Rose Fulbright, has filed a second patent in the U.S. for its UiMeet3D application for upcoming features to be released which enable a filter application on live audio stream in an image-based 3D environment, controlling automatically audio output of several streaming live video sessions based on the location of each of the video feeds within a digitalized 3D environment. This second patent adds up to the first U.S. patent application filed on March 8, 2021 with regards to an innovative way of displaying multiple avatars in a digitalized 3D environment.
"We are very pleased to have filed a second patent application in the U.S. with regards to UiMeet3D. When considering the uniqueness of our interactive 3D meetings (UiMeet3D) using avatars, its strong demand so far, and great potential, we want to make sure to protect further our investments in technologies, product developments and intellectual properties. We will also continue to evaluate whether additional patent applications filings are relevant in the near future as we progress with our innovations and improvement of our 3D solutions", stated Ghislain Lemire, President and Chief Executive Officer of Urbanimmersive.
3D Dollhouse Feature
One of the most requested features of a 3D virtual tour technology is the capability to showcase a home for sale as a dollhouse toy. The Company is pleased to announce that it has completed the development of such a feature and will start rolling out dollhouse view soon for all 3D tours ordered with a floor plan. This improvement will enable Urbanimmersive 3D tours to compete head-to-head on basic features with the largest 3D tour brands in the market.
Bright MLS ®
The Company has recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Bright MLS's real estate service to integrate and offer its 3D solutions (3D tours, UiMeet3D) within their platform. Bright MLS is a leading multiple listing service (MLS) that supports over 95,000 real estate professionals who in turn serve more than 20 million homeowners. In 2020, Bright MLS's customers facilitated $116.3B in real estate transactions through their system. The integration of the Company's 3D tours into Bright MLS systems is progressing and could lead to new business opportunities for reaching more MLSs organizations. For more information, please visit www.brightmls.com.
First 3D Tour of a Large Retail Chain
Brault&Martineau (TSX: GBT), one of the largest furniture and electronic appliance retail chains in Quebec is now using Urbanimmersive's 3D tour to showcase one of their new retail stores. The 3D tours produced for this store have required more than 1,000 scans which made it the largest 3D tour ever produced by Urbanimmersive.
3D Apartment Portal
3D Apartment real estate portal recently announced full integration with a competitive 3D tour brand, just started providing Urbanimmersive's 3D tours with the goal of promoting the use of UiMeet3D. This confirmed Urbanimmersive's 3D tours capacity to compete head-to-head with the leading brands and gain market shares.
Industrial Sector Progression
The Company has also progressed into the industrial 3D tours markets. The Crime Scene Investigation department of the Province of Quebec has recently notified Urbanimmersive that they will move ahead with the acquisition of the Company offline 3D tour technology for the remote investigation of selected crime scenes.
Fredericton Fire Department has selected Urbanimmersive's 3D tours for their remote investigation of fire incidents have already purchased the hardware from our Immersolution division and successfully completed their first projects.
The Company 3D tour technology has been selected by large industrial manufacturers in Mexico with one of them already having successfully completed a first 3D tour of their plant further confirming the technological edge of Urbanimmersive's offline 3D tours.
Regarding Mexico business developments, the Company's is pleased to announce having successfully shipped and sold its first 360 camera gears.
Term Loan Renewal
The Company has renewed for an additional two years both its cash flow and building term loans with a current outstanding balance of $1,070k and $894k, under the same terms and conditions, and which would now mature in December 2023.
Investor Video Conference Call
UI will be hosting a video conference to discuss those business updates and answer questions at 4p.m. (ET) on June 22, 2021. To participate to the video conference, please use the following link: https://urbanimmersive.zoom.us/j/93887834495
TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed this press release and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.
Urbanimmersive
Urbanimmersive is a SaaS business management solution that provides mission-critical solutions to visual content providers serving the real estate residential, commercial, construction, and local business markets. Urbanimmersive' platform helps customers to increase operational productivity and delivering the full potential of visual content creations through leading-edge websites builder tool, AI-backed image indexing, robust file transfer systems, and interactive visual technology solutions. The firm's core technology is a 3D emulator powered by a visual content recognition post-production algorithm that delivers online and offline alternatives to traditional 3D engines for the creation of immersive digital environments. Learn more at urbanimmersive.com.
Caution of Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking information that involves various risks and uncertainties. Such statements relating to, among other things, the prospects for the company to enhance operating results, are necessarily subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which are significant in scope and nature. These uncertainties may cause actual results to differ from information contained herein. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. These and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements are based on the estimates and opinions of the management on the dates they are made and expressly qualified in their entirety by this notice. The Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements should circumstances or management estimates or opinions change.
For more information, please contact:
Urbanimmersive
Ghislain Lemire
President & CEO
514-394-7820 X 202
ghislainlemire@urbanimmersive.com
Simon Bédard, CA, CPA, CFA, MBA
Chief Financial Officer
514 394-7820 X 224
simonbedard@urbanimmersive.com
